


Nothing but the best for you

by TerresDeBrume



Series: Rumor Has It (We're all selfish morons) [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Epistolary, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-06
Updated: 2012-10-06
Packaged: 2017-11-15 18:32:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes people write letters that aren't meant to be read.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing but the best for you

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first out of at least three parts, perhaps four. I'm not sure when the rest will be posted, but it will be.

**September 12, 2010.** _  
_

_So I was trying to start with something meaningful, like ‘my dear Loki’ or maybe ‘to my best friend’ or some of that shit._

_I even tried to write you the perfect speech, list all the reasons why this is the Perfect Day, capitals fully voiced and all… but then I realized I couldn’t._

_Look, there aren’t a thousand ways to go about it so I suppose I’ll get it out now: I love you. I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you watch through your bedroom window at the hospital and you looked so far away I thought you’d reached Narnia… which, by the way, is pretty ironic considering what happened afterward._

_The point is, I think I’ve been in love with you from the start. I just waited a long time to realize it._

_And you know, I wanted to tell you about it earlier. I wanted to. But then we were already best friends, and you had a life and a family and a career, while I was stuck spending my dad’s money and drinking like my life depended on it –I’m even writing that with a glass of bourbon, see? Alcohol problem, again._

_But that doesn’t matter. Because hey, you found a boyfriend! It’s… I’m happy you’re happy. I mean I wouldn’t have picked Thor at first glance because you’re really opposites and he’s a bit oblivious and I’m not sure he really believes in depression—but I’m not here to bash on him. He loves you. He’s doing his best. He’s willing to try. Really, he’s a good guy and clearly a good boyfriend… and you love him._

_The thing is, I’m not like him. I’m not good for you. And I’m not half as good or half as smiling as he is, and you’ve just gotten off the drugs, you don’t need an alcoholic in your life, right? The only thing I’ve got going on for me is that I talked about this with my therapist, a lot, and we’re both positive it’ not the addiction or rebound or whatever talking._

_It’s just me, in love with you._

_But you don’t need me, and I don’t want to be a burden for you._

_Which means you’re never going to see this. I just needed to write it, put what I feel into words, and now I’m going to stuff it in my drawer, and start actually working on that fucking speech._

_I’m your best man after all_

_Can’t go ruining everything, can I?_

 

 

It’s harder than he thought to close the drawer. The desk used to belong to his father, and Tony has never known any way to treat it than with respect and fear of retribution should her mistreat that piece of furniture. He’s always taken great care to keep it well oiled, and it’s not mechanics that make the drawer hard to close. It’s not the note that’s hard to put away.

It’s the feelings and possibilities, all the maybes and the what-ifs he’s been keeping close to his heart for so long he doesn’t remember how it felt to live without them.

 

Tony sighs and downs the remnant of his glass in one gulp, hoping he’s not going to put anything too stupid in his best man speech because really, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to improvise anything appropriate tomorrow.

 

It is the end of September, and Tony has a room waiting for him in a detox center in Malibu. He hopes he’ll be able to get rid of one of his demons there. He’s a programmer anyway. It’s not like he can’t work from there, and he can ask his clients to meet him halfway in the need arises –he’s got enough of a name for that to work.

Outside it’s raining. It’s not surprising, considering the season, but it still reminds Tony of the first time Loki talked to him, about two weeks after he’d seen him for the first time. He can almost feel the rain beat on his head as he sat down in the sodden grass and Loki asked if he was here to tell him to go back in, that he was going to get sick.

After that, they talked about their respective fathers and things just… clicked. They understood each other, what the other had gone through, but at the same time, they were just different enough that they were able to give each other a fresh look on some points. Just different enough that they managed to distract each other rather than wallow in their misery.

 

For the full two years they spent at the hospital together, Tony and Loki were able to help each other think of something else than their addictions or poor mental health.

Tony is forever grateful for that, but he knows now is the time to learn to live on his own again.

 

Maybe it’s selfish to think this way, but it still hurts. He wishes it would stop, to be honest, but if it stopped then what? He doesn’t want to go back to the void that was his life before Loki. He’d rather have it hurt than forget.

He’d rather leave knowing that Loki is happy than stay and risk making things awkward, at best.

 

 _P.S._ , he writes once he has finished writing the speech –and packing, and emptying his bottles of expansive whiskeys down the toilet-  _I wish you the very best, and nothing less._

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments and concrit are dearly appreciated! [<3](http://fanfanwrites.tumblr.com/ask)


End file.
